Moto X and Motomaker launch today at AT&T Stores

But for some annoying reason, you can't buy it online.

The mid-range, specs-don't-matter Moto X hits AT&T stores today along with Motomaker, the X's custom exterior design website. The AT&T store will carry the phone in black and white, but the real standout feature of the Moto X is the ability to pick your own color combinations with Motomaker.

Motomaker will let you chose from 2 front colors, 18 back colors, and 7 accent colors, so your Moto X will be different from everyone else's Moto X. If you want to take advantage of the distinctive design-your-own feature, though, prepare to jump through some hoops.

You can't just go to the Motomaker website, color a phone, and order it. You have to get up, go to an AT&T store, buy a "Moto X card," go back home, enter the code from the card into Motomaker, and then you are allowed to purchase one online. It is mandatory that you step into an AT&T store. The Moto X will run you $199 for the 16GB version and $250 for 32GB.

Keep in mind that the Moto X is also slated to eventually hit the other big three carriers, and more features are in the pipeline for Motomaker, like engravings and wood backs. Those not wholly committed to the phone might best be served by waiting until the Moto X rollout is complete.

Honestly, if I were in the market, I'd give this a good hard look. The always-on Google Now and the icon notifications are pretty nifty features, and it seems powerful enough even if it isn't a quad-core monster. And the customization seems pretty nice too; I'd kind of like to have a phone with a wood back.

In my opinion, the only misstep here - albeit a big one - is the AT&T timed exclusivity. I truly struggle to think of more than a couple of mainstream consumer devices that actually benefited from such a deal. The iPhone and (maybe) the first Droid. On the suffering side, you've got the 3G Vita, most of the Droid line, a few of LG's phones, and that's just off the top of my head.

Surely Google/Moto has enough leverage in the market and cash in the bank to not shoot themselves in the foot.

I busted my phone a couple weeks back, and I've been waiting to pick up one of these. I don't care about the customization.

For some reason that I can't comprehend, they insist on making it as infuriating as possible to actually get one. The whole, here's a cool phone, but we won't tell you where or when you can buy it, or how much it will cost is about to drive me away.

As far as I can tell, and I've been watching it fairly close. There's still no confirmed dates or prices, for other carriers / play store. Why is it so hard to say, you can buy this on date x for $y?

So... is the only currently available X tied to the AT&T network?Or am I "just" required to go buy a purchase voucher (why the heck?) from an AT&T store?And if the former is a "yes," when will other carrier models be available? Carrier-free models?

This launch is a pain in the rear. Just enough information to leave me with more questions than when I started.

Any credible rumors on the actual unlocked cost if bought through Motorola/Play Store down the line or how long that timed exclusive is? I know At&t is pricing it off contract near the One and S4, but T-Mobile priced the N4 at $550 when you could get it for $300 on the play store.. too much to hope for something similar with the MotoX?

The motoX is a fine phone. 720 for a small screen? I'd bet money that 90% of people would never notice the difference, and even more at 12" or further. That screen saves you batter power.

The screen resolution arms race is absurdly stupid.

As to its processor? My Original Note is still fast and smooth with Cyanogenmod 10.2 (Jellybean 4.3) and was with 4.2.2 as well - other than benchmark flapping, the MotoX's processor is more than adequate to do anything you are going to do on your handset.

Even with the mid-specs on this phone I was interested. Moto has some very smart engineering in this phone. However, it costs the same as top tier phones and yet another phone without a removable battery. Lots of people don't seem to care about this but I keep my phones a long time and almost always end up needing to replace the battery.

I busted my phone a couple weeks back, and I've been waiting to pick up one of these. I don't care about the customization.

For some reason that I can't comprehend, they insist on making it as infuriating as possible to actually get one. The whole, here's a cool phone, but we won't tell you where or when you can buy it, or how much it will cost is about to drive me away.

As far as I can tell, and I've been watching it fairly close. There's still no confirmed dates or prices, for other carriers / play store. Why is it so hard to say, you can buy this on date x for $y?

I'm probably just slow, but that article didn't have any information not contained in the one on ARS. I neglected to put it in my original post, but I'm on t-mobile, and I'm not willing to switch carriers just for a particular phone.

Unfortunately, the MotoX is already yesterday's news.Mid-range phone, high-end price: the story will unfold exactly as expected.

yeah. i'm sure it's nice though.

give it to me off contract 16gb for 299-349$ ish and i would be interested.

this isnt a google phone under the nexus brand, this is a flagship motorola phone. why would an oem that is out to make profit on handsets cut the price that low? seriously? think about that for a second...

you may thing it should be that low because google owns motorola but they are still operating separately for most things and this appears to be one of them minus the advertising budget.

I can't wait to pick the features in my new phone! Even if it costs a bit more, I really want one with expandable storage.

Wait, I can't do that? Well, it'll at least be nice to get one that's a different siz...oh, really?

Well, how about picking a shape that's more comfortable to....

No? Let me see here.....yeah! I get to make the back blue! And a fraction of an inch of that blue will be visible when I put a case on the phone! KILLER. APP.

That's hardly fair. Perhaps you heard all the rumours about a "customizable" phone and started wishing for the moon, but those things were never going to happen. Designing a cell phone requires huge amounts of very precise engineering. You can't just make a phone bigger/smaller or shaped differently without drastically altering things like antenna performance, battery shape/size, layout of internals, heat dissipation, etc. Likewise, adding in expandable storage would require some pretty major changes to the software stack.

Your proposed solution would essentially require Motorola engineers to design dozens, if not hundreds of different phones, which is simply not realistic. Would you prefer to have your cell phone filled with swappable, modularized components (akin to a $300 HP laptop), or would you prefer every inch to be carefully designed to maximize performance, battery life, size and weight (akin to a MacBook Air). Personally, I know which one I'd choose.

I'm sorry - you missed the boat here. The customization is NOT the big feature of this phone. The Trusted Devices | Device Fencing is the big feature. There are too many people - most people reading this - who have not set a lock PIN / pattern on their phone. They should be locking their devices, but find it annoying to have to unlock. With the trusted devices feature you can set it so that when you are in range of various devices (maybe your BT in the car stereo or your BT headset if you have an older stereo like me, perhaps your BT keyboard at home, etc.) it will automatically unlock. So you don't have to try to type a PIN to unlock it in the car, etc. This, coupled with the audio processor for the Google Now with no hands are the big features.

Your proposed solution would essentially require Motorola engineers to design dozens, if not hundreds of different phones, which is simply not realistic. Would you prefer to have your cell phone filled with swappable, modularized components (akin to a $300 HP laptop), or would you prefer every inch to be carefully designed to maximize performance, battery life, size and weight (akin to a MacBook Air). Personally, I know which one I'd choose.

My point is more that it'd be better to leave the "feature" out altogether, because either you know how little "customization" is actually possible with a phone like this, and thus know that "Motobuilder" is a gimmick, or you don't know, get your hopes up, and are inevitably disappointed by the fact that all you get to do is pick a backplate. Either way it's a waste of perfectly good effort and resources.

I don't see how they can justify the phone at that price. The 720 screen is a HUGE letdown... How is this any better than the Nexus 4?

Errr... why? How close do you use your phone to your face? I would suggest looking here: http://isthisretina.com/ to get an idea of why this is irrelevant. (Or even a bonus in saving battery by driving half the number of pixels while still looking nearly 100% the same)

Now, if you were talking about color reproduction, max brightness and performance in sunlight, then I would understand.

I'm sorry - you missed the boat here. The customization is NOT the big feature of this phone. The Trusted Devices | Device Fencing is the big feature. There are too many people - most people reading this - who have not set a lock PIN / pattern on their phone. They should be locking their devices, but find it annoying to have to unlock. With the trusted devices feature you can set it so that when you are in range of various devices (maybe your BT in the car stereo or your BT headset if you have an older stereo like me, perhaps your BT keyboard at home, etc.) it will automatically unlock. So you don't have to try to type a PIN to unlock it in the car, etc. This, coupled with the audio processor for the Google Now with no hands are the big features.

Not if your organization enforces BYOD rules, which override that fancy trusted devices thing. Now you're back to square one.

The motoX is a fine phone. 720 for a small screen? I'd bet money that 90% of people would never notice the difference, and even more at 12" or further. That screen saves you batter power.

The screen resolution arms race is absurdly stupid.

As to its processor? My Original Note is still fast and smooth with Cyanogenmod 10.2 (Jellybean 4.3) and was with 4.2.2 as well - other than benchmark flapping, the MotoX's processor is more than adequate to do anything you are going to do on your handset.

so if 720 really is the point of diminishing returns, eg. no one would notice the difference, then we BETTER NOT see the next Moto X2 come out with a 1080p screen.

put your money where your mouth is, if specs truly and utterly don't matter, then we better not see a faster processor, bigger screen, more pixel density, etc in the next moto X.

Unfortunately, the MotoX is already yesterday's news.Mid-range phone, high-end price: the story will unfold exactly as expected.

yeah. i'm sure it's nice though.

give it to me off contract 16gb for 299-349$ ish and i would be interested.

this isnt a google phone under the nexus brand, this is a flagship motorola phone. why would an oem that is out to make profit on handsets cut the price that low? seriously? think about that for a second...

you may thing it should be that low because google owns motorola but they are still operating separately for most things and this appears to be one of them minus the advertising budget.

i don't care. that's my price limit for a phone like this.

they don't want my money and it doesn't matter at the price they are asking. they can ask 1 milllion $ for it for all i care.

My point is more that it'd be better to leave the "feature" out altogether, because either you know how little "customization" is actually possible with a phone like this, and thus know that "Motobuilder" is a gimmick, or you don't know, get your hopes up, and are inevitably disappointed by the fact that all you get to do is pick a backplate. Either way it's a waste of perfectly good effort and resources.

Why is this a waste? It may not meet your personal threshold for significance, sure, but I have no doubt that there are many people who would be quite excited about the possibility of creating a phone with a green back and black front with the phrase "Jimmy Rules!" engraved onto it. People loved when the white iPhone was released. This simply takes it a step further.

The motoX is a fine phone. 720 for a small screen? I'd bet money that 90% of people would never notice the difference, and even more at 12" or further. That screen saves you batter power.

The screen resolution arms race is absurdly stupid.

As to its processor? My Original Note is still fast and smooth with Cyanogenmod 10.2 (Jellybean 4.3) and was with 4.2.2 as well - other than benchmark flapping, the MotoX's processor is more than adequate to do anything you are going to do on your handset.

so if 720 really is the point of diminishing returns, eg. no one would notice the difference, then we BETTER NOT see the next Moto X2 come out with a 1080p screen.

put your money where your mouth is, if specs truly and utterly don't matter, then we better not see a faster processor, bigger screen, more pixel density, etc in the next moto X.

The next Moto X probably will have a 5" screen for several reasons: Firstly, the reaction it generated from even the google fans was not great (as seen by the above).Secondly, I would expect 5" 1080p panels to be increasingly common by next year, so the cost delta between them will be reduced.Thirdly, and this is the biggest, is marketing; I need to have bigger numbers/specs on paper, because that is easy to quantify and compare against.

The last point is the biggest. I have a Nexus 4 with a very good LG IPS screen. It looks a lot better than my friends' S4s when side by side. But trying to explain that qualitative metric in a paper review to most users is very difficult, hence why you don't really see it.

It is the biggest mystery about the Moto-X design; how did the engineers manage to win against the marketing department?

By the way, performance is excellent, and the voice and touch controls are great. Very happy with my purchase.

That's what I just did today. Moto X on Verizon can't be customized for the next several months after release, and the Maxx has every software feature that the Moto X does. I wanted the Moto X, but Qi charging with that battery were huge pluses for the Maxx that the Moto X does not match.

Ron Amadeo / Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work.